EUGENE -- It was last week, during a long walk on the Oakway Golf Course near his apartment, when Josh Huff stopped at the No. 4 green, laid down and looked to the night sky.

"I saw the stars," Huff said. "And it took me back to my childhood."

It's not often he allows himself to go back there, to those days in Houston, lest he relive all the pain, all the anger, all the scars. It wasn't until this summer, after he enlisted the help of a counselor in Eugene, that he began to understand his youth and begin his path to healing, a path that has led him to this golf course, and these stars.

He almost didn't make it to Eugene to play football for the Ducks. Almost didn't make it, he says, because he nearly died.

It was his mom -- battling drugs and swinging a 2x4 at his head in a fit of rage -- who almost killed him, he says.

A year later, with Huff struggling as a freshman in Eugene, Houston police records say his mother swung a lead pipe at a man named James Oliver. She was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sent to prison.

The last time he saw her was last year, a couple of weeks before the Ducks played in the Fiesta Bowl. She was on parole, and he went home to Houston for six days, only it wasn't a happy reunion. The details of his visit are best summed up with his arrival and departure. She forgot to pick him up at the airport. Then, as he was leaving on Christmas day to rejoin the Ducks in Phoenix, she pulled up recklessly in the driveway, jumping the curb before parking her truck askew.

"She looked like a total mess," Huff remembers.

There was a half-hearted embrace. Then he kissed her on the cheek and left.

Unbeknownst to Huff, eight days earlier she had taken a drug test as part of her parole, a test that court records show was positive for cocaine. By the time Huff had reached Arizona and phoned home, she had gone missing. It wasn't until April that his father received a letter that she was in Marlin, Texas, back in prison.

So as he finds himself looking up to the night sky, drifting back to Houston, it is not to reminisce. Rather, it is to soak in perspective. The distance to the stars doesn't come close to rivaling how far he has come.

He is the top receiver on one of the nation's most explosive football teams, four days removed from catching a 54-yard touchdown pass against Tennessee. And he is one month removed from wearing a cap and gown, becoming the first in his family to earn a college degree.

His voice cracks when he tells that story, him walking across the stage, taking hold of his diploma and looking into the crowd to see his father, Donald Simpson. Huff thought it might be the happiest he had ever seen him, and he was right. Simpson said he was so moved he had chills. After all, it finalized a pact they made long ago: Football would be for Josh; the degree for dad.

These walks along the golf course have become more frequent of late, the serene setting symbolizing his evolving core. Up through this summer he had been a volatile sort, prone to angry outbursts and sullen spells of isolation. He figured his teammates thought he was self-centered and distant, so this summer he addressed a group of them, and told them his story. Told them of his mom. Told them he almost died.

His openness speaks to the peace Huff has found. He says counseling taught him to absolve the blame he placed on himself for his mother's addiction, and helped alleviate the guilt he felt for never confronting her drug use.

But as he walks in peace, he knows he is approaching a crossroads. On Oct. 1, in the middle of what could be a historic season for the No. 2 Ducks, his mother has a parole hearing. If she is released, Huff says he does not know how he will react.

So he walks, hoping an answer will come to him.

'He told me he loved me like a son'

The last time Huff was this conflicted, he walked. Walked straight into the office of Scott Frost, his position coach, and broke down.

It was his freshman year, and the Ducks were preparing for their season opener against New Mexico. Huff that morning had learned that his mom had gone missing.

It started a cycle of doubt and unease for Huff, feelings that for two years would cause him to question whether Oregon was the right place for him, to question why he left home. Those feelings were compounded when he didn't play as much as he envisioned his first two years, in part because of injuries, and in part because of attitude.

"I had a lot of uncertainty within myself, whether I should be here or not," Huff says. "I just wasn't happy."

By that point, the easy thing would be to dismiss his mother, but he couldn't do it. He remembered the woman who used to get on all fours like a horse, and let him ride on her shoulders, bumping and bouncing throughout the living room.

"I used to love that," Huff says staring at the ground with a smile.

Josh Huff has one picture of his mother, Charlotte Simpson, seen here with husband Donald Simpson, who is not Huff's biological father, but has been with him since age 1. Bruce Ely/The Oregonian

His father says he remembers Josh and his mom being inseparable. He would tag along with his mom to the store, to the mall, to get her hair done. Huff giggles and pauses when he recalls the nickname his mom used for him: "Midget," Huff beams.

"It was a beautiful relationship," Donald Simpson says. "That's why he loves her so much. She would be on the floor tossing him up and down, he would be jumping on her back. I would have to be the one to tell them to quiet down."

Even after his high school years, when he says she once threatened over the phone to kill him, and the time she swung the 2x4 at his head, Huff was conflicted. You only have one mom, he says, and he wanted her love. Yet, he said he felt abandoned.

But an important seed was planted that day in Frost's office, one that would help keep Huff rooted in Eugene.

"He told me he loved me like a son," Huff says, his lip quivering.

It pierced Huff deeply, breaking through his brash and standoffish facade and striking the core of his needs. Now, thousands of miles from home, he had found a second father.

"Any time somebody tells you something like that ...," Huff says, trying to compose himself. "It just speaks volumes."

Huff would never make it to practice that day. He says he stayed in Frost's office, eventually finding refuge in the corner, on the floor.

"I cried the entire time they were practicing," Huff says.

When Frost returned after practice, they talked, and their foundation of trust and love grew. Frost would not comment for this story, but Huff says he taught him how to separate his mom -- his real mom -- from the mom using drugs. And he taught him how to separate his personal life from football.

"He's my dad away from home," Huff says. "He is one of the reasons I have been able to get through this. He has been there every step of the way."

And there have been many steps.

'That's when I knew I had to go'

The day before Thanksgiving of 2010, three months after Huff broke down in Frost's office, his mom was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Two months later she was given a four-year sentence.

Emotions swelled. There was hurt. Anger. And, mostly, guilt.

"When I had heard she had been sentenced, I thought back to that day," Huff says of leaving for college for the first time.

Leading up to his departure, his mom was trying to connect, but each time he would stonewall her.

He was still harboring feelings from the past year, from that Saturday in October right after his 18th birthday. That day his mom took a swing at his head with a 2x4.

"I can still imagine it vividly,' Jerrica Henderson, Huff's longtime girlfriend, says of that day. "It was beyond horrifying."

It was set up to be a memorable day. Jerrica was taking Josh to the Ladies Night Dance at Aldine High School and also showering him with birthday gifts. Suddenly, they say, everything turned. His mom became upset with Jerrica. Told her to leave. Josh wanted to know why. She challenged Josh, standing nose to nose. He wanted to leave and asked her to move out of his way. She wouldn't. He moved her. They wrestled. He broke away and went to the driveway and prepared to leave.

"The next thing I know, she came out of the backyard with a board and was swinging it at his head," Jerrica says.

For years he had lived with her addiction. Watched it change her. Felt it take her from him. He had known it.

This he did not know.

"I knew then, this is not my mom," Huff says. "This is not the mother I know. And that's when I knew I had to go."

He started living at Jerrica's, leaving behind more than just his home. He left part of himself.

"After that moment, he shut down completely from everybody, one hundred percent," Jerrica says. "It's still an ongoing battle."

When it came time to leave for Eugene, she showed up. She was crying and apologizing. She went in for a hug.

"I wasn't accepting it. Not at all," Huff says. "I got into the car and left, not even thinking about what I had done."

When her sentence came, so did his emotions.

"If I would have hugged her like she wanted to be hugged, would she have gone down that path? Sometimes that's what I think about," says Huff, an only child. "She didn't have her husband. She didn't have her son. I left her without anything to lose."

A team filled with moms

As he nears this weekend's game against Cal, Huff thinks back to his early days at Oregon, the days when he thought about leaving. It makes him chuckle. Since he has arrived in Eugene, he has strengthened his relationship with God, and he believes he is often being steered by a higher force.

After considering leaving Oregon during his first two seasons, Josh Huff has emerged as the team's leading receiver this season with 14 catches for 298 yards (21.3 average) and one touchdown.Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

"God has said this is the place for me, and I have grown to love this place as my number one home," Huff says. "This place here, it keeps me sane. Keeps me focused on the task at hand so I can make a better life for myself and my future family."

He does not know if he has lost his mother. Time will tell. What he does know is that he has found a family in his Oregon football team, complete with their mothers, in particular the mothers of Tony Washington, Chance Allen, Hroniss Grasu, De'Anthony Thomas as well as Jerrica's mom, Nikki Thomas.

"God places people in your life for a reason, and those people were meant to be placed in my life for that motherly love, and I'm going with it," Huff said. "I love them like they are my own mom."

This summer, he decided it was time to let more of his teammates in. At a meeting of team leaders, Huff took the stage in the team's theater room. He told them his story. Explained why he is the way he is. And he told them he needed them. Safety Brian Jackson listened, enraptured. He says it was so emotional, several teammates went and comforted Huff after he was done.

"At that moment, he got closer to everybody," Jackson says. "And you could see a change in his demeanor. He opened up to us and showed another side to him. He explained why he was a little bit closed to everybody else. It made sense. I believe he got a big weight off his shoulders. You could see he let it all out. And I feel like once he did that, he felt a relief he hasn't had in a while."

Indeed, it was a revelation for Huff. He felt liberated. And like he was part of an extended family.

"To be around a group of brothers who know your story, know your background and genuinely care about you is truly a blessing," Huff says. "And the coaches here are phenomenal. They will get on you, make sure you are doing everything right, but at the same time, they will love you just like one of their own. That's what I love about Oregon. You are surrounded by people who genuinely care for you, and they want you to be great."

The missing piece

He has figured out much of his life during his days in Eugene, some of it here on this golf course. But there is one final path to take, one crossroads to navigate.

Oct. 1 will be his mother's next parole hearing and he is wrestling with how to handle her possible release.

"That's what I haven't figured out yet," Huff says.

He has been taking the path of tough love, where he loves her from a distance. He will not answer her mail, and will not speak to her. He wants to see change before he opens himself up to her, before he trusts again.

In the meantime, he focuses on football, and his father.

Simpson is not his biological father, but he has been there since he was 1, and Huff says calling him his step-father is out of the question.

"He is my dad. My motor. My heart," Huff says.

Simpson has not divorced his mom, but he has distanced himself from her. He still communicates with her in prison and he is dreaming of a day when they are all together. When he was in Eugene for Huff's graduation, he presented him with a homemade card. It was from his mother. Go Ducks was on the cover.

"He may think tough love might be the only way right now, and he may have a point," Simpson says. "But I think he just wants her to be right. That's all that is. I think if he sees her right, then he will open his arms."

If he does open his arms, she will hug a new son. One who has become a man. And done so in spite of what he was missing.

"When she left, she took a part of me," Huff said. "I found most of it, found most of myself. But I am still missing that one piece. That one motherly piece."